


The First Ritual

by Laetitia_Laetitii



Category: Runescape
Genre: Gen, Mahjarrat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 14:56:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6333514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Fate of the Gods, Kharshai tells Aileen a few things about Freneskae.</p><p>This is not a full story as such, but a fragment I salvaged it from a dead fic. It was first written for an anonymous Mahjarrat, but when I looked at the finished thing it was plain to see who was talking. It features coming of age on Freneskae and my idea about their stripes.  Written in February 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Ritual

  “And the old country did that to you?” Kharshai asked, nodding towards my heavily bandaged right arm.  
  
    “Convection from a crack in the ground. Three seconds more and I wouldn’t be standing here at all.”  
  
    “One more reason to not go to Freneskae,” he answered, sitting down on the other side of the fire. His words stirred a memory.  
  
    “Azzanadra said that it’s beautiful to the Mahjarrat. Something like that.”  
  
    “I suppose he would,” he answered dryly. “And I know for one that he prefers to admire Freneskae’s beauty safely through the World Gate, same as everyone else. Let me tell you a story…”  
   
     “In the absence of a way to measure age in years, a child is deemed grown-up as the bone ridges on its head harden and the last of the tissue covering the crystal drop off. From the day this happens, he becomes eligible as a sacrifice for the Ritual of Rejuvenation, and has to fight at his first one. If he survives, he’s deemed fit to participate in the Ritual of Enervation.  
     
    There were many ways of choosing the sacrifice: sometimes the strongest of the tribe would simply pick one, sometimes a fight would be arranged between disfavoured individuals. The kind of free-for-all brawl that was once witnessed by a Fremennik was mostly reserved for occasions when major political disagreements divided us.  
     
     When the time came for me to enter adulthood, there already was an obvious choice for the next sacrifice, a warrior only slightly older than me who had been accused of cowardice during a raid against the Mahserrat. Had I not been there, he would have gone straight on the Marker, but instead I was pitted against him. If I could not beat a supposed deserter, I would not deserve to live.  
     
     I don’t know whether or not he was a coward when attacking the neighbouring tribe, but he certainly had no qualms about taking on a lad who had yet to reach his full height, and he made little effort to conceal his contempt for me. But though young and inexperienced I was powerful, far more so than my opponent realized, and that might have saved my life.  
     
    I can’t recall the actual journey from the camp to the ritual site, but I can still picture him standing by the Marker, waiting for me. As per custom in arranged fights, we faced each other at the opposite ends of the ritual site and waited for the next lightning to strike. It seemed an eternity, that wait, and for a moment I thought the skies of Freneskae had rained their last bolts forever. Then, in the next heartbeat the heavens cracked open, and white fire hit the peaks we called the Five Claws. And so with the rest of the tribe watching we fought with blasts of fire and lightning and with fists and claws. We were fairly evenly matched, neither clearly gaining the upper hand, when suddenly he sent a great volley of dark fire against my face, knocking me down. In a second he was on top of me, and his fingers found their way around my neck.  
  
    There on the ground I truly understood for the first time what it was to be a Mahjarrat: it meant that every second of my life for as long as I lived I would have to be ready to kill or be killed, whoever I was up against, be it a kinsman, an ally or a stranger. Despite the danger and the pain, despite the horror at the prospect of my own death the thought was sharp and clear, as if a solid object was framed by a glow from behind…I knew it was a condition of my own existence that I would never escape.  I recall a sense of time slowing, my ears full of the sound of my own rushing blood, my vision sharpening until I could see every crease in the skin of his rage-distorted face, every flake of ash dancing in the air around us. I recall the reflection of the crater’s fires in the sky above the mountain, so far, far above…  
     
    In those few seconds I had my epiphany and I made my decision -that I accepted that condition, and that I would live with it. As the world darkened in my eyes I craved life more than I ever had before, full of rage at the one who would take it from me. And but for a bit of luck he would have dragged me to the Marker that day, but my hand found a sharp sliver of rock on the ground, and before he could react, I used every bit of strength left in me to ram it in his right eye.  
   
     The howl he let out would have woken Mother Mah herself, and as he recoiled in pain, half-blind, I sprang up and knocked him on the ground with a burst of fire of my own. There he lay, face burned, blinded, wailing like an animal, and he still wailed as I hauled him to the Marker Stone by his robes. The others gathered around, recognizing me as winner and so we sacrificed Arogad.  
     
     I was still drunk with fright and rage and barely understood what happened when he disappeared in a blast of our combined spells. Then out of the crowd emerged my uncle carrying a stone knife and a steaming pot containing a mixture my mother had prepared –blood taken from the body of a slain enemy, crushed yellow rock and secret things only the women knew. I was an adult now, and that meant I should be marked as one so that none would spare me as a child. First he cut a triangular patch of skin from underneath each eye, making the incisions with the knife and peeling the tissue off with his fingernails. Then he cut two long strips extending from the brow along the freshly hardened ridges to the back of my head. Finally, he cut along the lines around my mouth, and with a few expert swipes of his blade, he skinned my jaw and the bone spurs on each side of it.  
     
     I stood in front of my people who waited to see if I would break and scream, or stand tall and proud as a Mahjarrat should. The pain from the cuts alone was agonizing, and as blood ran down my face and head, my uncle produced a pouch of dye which he rubbed deep into the wounds. Finally he picked up the pot, and using a flat piece of bone for a brush, he worked that stinking, caustic solution into my flesh to set the dye and prevent instinctive healing. When he was done –at the point I feared I might faint from the pain –he stood aside and declared: “Behold, people, Kharshai of the Mahjarrat tribe!”  And all threw back their heads and howled their battle cries in recognition until my uncle nodded to me to signal that it was acceptable to go. Amid more howls and high-pitched shrieks I ran to a bank of volcanic ash and slapped handfuls of it on my face to neutralize the setting solution, until my kin pulled me up and congratulated me, for I was a man now.”  
  
    “Or what amounts to the same thing, at any rate.” As he spoke, he ran a thumb and a finger along his face, on which I knew he sported a pale scar down each cheek even in human form. “I was a man and that meant I fought some more. I fought the strong Chelon-Mah and the Mahserrat who come in the dark, and I fought enemies whose names I didn’t even know. And above all else I fought my own, and when I wasn’t fighting I was preparing to fight, or devising desperate ways to keep from fighting and yet from being the next one to die.” Kharshai sat still for a while, staring into the flames, and for a second his underlit face became a skull. “Now, that’s the beauty of Freneskae for you,” he continued, his voice quiet, “It makes sure all you ever know is how to kill, and curse the ash in your eyes, and watch everyone you might have cared for in another life get murdered so you can go on living.”


End file.
